HOLYOKE — Home brewing hobbyists looking to leap into commercial production might sink $250,000 or more into equipment before anyone can pop the top on one of their beers.

But soon, wannabe brewers will be able to contract with Loophole Brewing Services, which plans a $3 million-plus brewery and tasting room in what’s now a warehouse at 104 Whiting Farms Road in Holyoke. Loophole will share space with East Baking Co.

“People who are aspiring can come in, brew on our system, learn under our brewmaster and have it sold in our tasting room, and if things go well have it distributed under our license,” said Jeffery “Heffe” Goulet, one of three Loophole Brewing co-founders. “I come from a manufacturing background. I know that if you are going to sink money into equipment, you need to run that equipment 24/7 in order to make money on that investment.”

Which is why the three partners in Loophole — Goulet, Aaron Saunders and Todd Snopkowski — are taking a three-prong approach. Loophole will make its own beers. It’ll do contract brewing, making beers for established, but still smallish, local beer brands that need to add capacity or just try out a new recipe for a reasonable cost. And it’ll offer the Aspiring Brewers Program.

The program will offer batches as small as three barrels of beer. One barrel equals two kegs or about 240 pint glasses of beer. The price to the aspiring brewer is not yet determined.

"It will be a whole lot less than it will cost you to create your own brewery," Saunders said. "The goal here is to make it accessible."

Saunders, a former Ludlow selectman and state legislative staffer, is handling the government relations part of the business. Snopkowski is the founder and CEO of Snapchef, a company that trains folks for in-demand culinary jobs and provides contract staffing to restaurants and commercial kitchens.

Goulet said he’s worked in and around the local beer scene for 15 years and he’s run the Worthy Brewfest on Worthington Street in Springfield each June for nine years. He did marketing and recipe design for Swing Oil beer.

In addition to his work in craft beer, Goulet has 25 years of manufacturing and sales experiences as owner of Product Resource Specialists, a manufacturer’s representative firm with offices in New York and Massachusetts. There, he’s met lots of enthusiasts who’d like to, but cannot, break into the beer business.

“They are in a really weird spot. A lot of them are gaining a lot of expertise. They might even have T-shirts or labels,” Goulet said. “They can’t legally sell their beer. But they want to become brewers.”

Goulet used the example of Rustic Brewing in Indian Orchard. With a small system, Rustic can make about two kegs worth of beer in a batch that takes 14 days to age properly. The most recent batch sold out online in 36 seconds.

Other local breweries do contact brewing for established brands. Places that do it include Brewmasters in Williamsburg and Berkshire Brewing in South Deerfield.

Goulet said Loophole will offer smaller production runs than its competitors — and those competitors are running out capacity to sell as the local beer scene expands. He said he can’t disclose who his customers are, but 40 percent of Loophole’s hoped-for 10,000 barrel-a-year capacity is already spoken for.

“The bread and butter is going to be the contract brewing,” he said. “That’s what’s going to keep the lights on.”

Saunders said the plan is to have Loophole up and running by November of this year. Federal approvals are slow because of the backlog created by the government shutdown earlier this year. Once the federal government has approved, Loophole can go to the state for approvals.

In the meantime, the partners need city approvals for renovations and for the tasting room. And it can take months for manufacturers to fabricate brewing equipment.

"We are going to have our eyes out on 91 looking for trucks with equipment," Saunders said.

Loophole hired Austin Design — which has offices in Greenfield and in Brattleboro, Vermont — for its project. Austin Design designed Treehouse Brewing’s tasting room and production line in Charlton as well as the Northampton Brewery.

The Loophole brewery will be 13,000 square feet with a 2,000-square-foot tap room. Sauders said it won’t have a commercial kitchen, but instead will be designed to accommodate food trucks for events. They plan to build an outdoor seating area as well.

Saunders said Loophole will package the beer in kegs, as to-go jugs of draft called growlers, and probably cans. Bottled beer has fallen out of favor with aficionados because bottles don’t preserve flavor and freshness as well.

“There is an experience difference,” he said. “When you have a brewery and a tap room, you go the brewery now and it’s your neighborhood brewery. You meet people. You talk to the brewer.”